The Children of Israel in Sinai

"The Children of Israel" in Sinai:

The most important events that befell them there, drawing on the Noble Qur'an and the Torah, can be summarised as follows:

First: The revelation of the Torah:

The Torah was sent down to Moses, containing the commandments that the Israelites must follow, whether in what concerns God, in their dealings among themselves, or in their relations with others.

Second: Moses' organisation of the Israelite people:

1 - Moses (peace be upon him) appointed priests from the tribe of the Levites to serve the holy Temple. He restricted to them the right to interpret the law and the divine statutes, and forbade them to take part in government or to acquire private property, so that they might devote themselves entirely to the service of the law. In return he exempted them from military service and made the other tribes responsible for supporting them and meeting their living needs. He appointed Aaron (peace be upon him) head of the priests, with the headship to continue in his line.

This choice gave the tribe moral standing, spiritual influence and great respect in the hearts of the Israelite people.

2 - Moses (peace be upon him) raised from the other tribes an army to protect the call and to strive for the land that God had promised them. He made fighting obligatory on males from the age of twenty to the age of sixty. Then he appointed Joshua son of Nun, of the tribe of Joseph (peace be upon him), commander of the army of conquest, with Eleazar son of Aaron as his minister or religious adviser.

3 - He laid down for the Israelites the order they must follow in the land God had promised they would conquer: he commanded them to divide it, according to the number of the tribes, into twelve equal portions to be distributed among the tribes by lot.

Third: The worship of the calf:

It happened that, after the Israelites felt secure in their escape from Pharaoh, and when Moses had left them to receive the Torah, they found his return slow, and their souls, which had been influenced by the idolatry of the Egyptians, tempted them to make for themselves a god just as those people had gods. So they made from their ornaments a calf, a body that lowed, and devoted themselves to worshipping it. The Qur'an and the Torah agree on this, except that the Qur'an states that the one who made the calf for them was a man called al-Samiri.

God the Exalted says:

"And what has made you hasten ahead of your people, O Moses?" He said, "They are close upon my track, and I hastened to You, my Lord, that You might be pleased." He said, "We have tried your people after you, and al-Samiri has led them astray." So Moses returned to his people, angry and grieved. He said, "O my people, did your Lord not make you a fair promise? Did the time seem too long to you, or did you wish that wrath from your Lord should descend upon you, and so you broke your promise to me?" They said, "We did not break our promise to you of our own will, but we were made to carry loads of the people's ornaments, and we cast them in, and so too did al-Samiri throw." Then he brought out for them a calf, a body that lowed, and they said, "This is your god and the god of Moses, but he forgot." Did they not see that it returned them no word and had no power to harm or benefit them? And Aaron had already said to them before, "O my people,

you are only being tried by it. Truly your Lord is the Most Merciful, so follow me and obey my command." They said, "We shall not cease to devote ourselves to it until Moses returns to us." He said, "O Aaron, what prevented you, when you saw them going astray, from following me? Did you disobey my command?" He said, "O son of my mother, do not seize me by my beard or by my head. I feared that you would say, 'You have caused division among the Children of Israel and did not heed my word.'" He said, "And what is your business, O Samiri?" He said, "I perceived what they did not perceive, so I took a handful from the track of the messenger and cast it, and thus my soul prompted me." He said, "Then go! It shall be yours in this life to say, 'Do not touch me,' and you have an appointment that you will not fail to keep. Look at your god to which you remained devoted: we shall surely burn it and then scatter it in the sea, utterly. Your god is only God, besides whom there is no god; He encompasses all things in knowledge."

Thus we see that while the Qur'an states that al-Samiri was the one who led them astray and that Aaron (peace be upon him) was the one who guided them aright, we see the Torah stating that the one who made the calf for them was Aaron (peace be upon him). This is its text:

"And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And Aaron said to them, Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives and your daughters and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he took them from their hands and fashioned it

with a graving tool and made it a molten calf. And they said, These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. And they rose early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. And the Lord said to Moses, Go, get down, for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly from the way I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

And Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other they were written. And the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets .. And it came to pass, as soon as he came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing. And Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. Then he took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire and ground it until it was fine powder, and scattered it on the face of the water and made the Children of Israel drink it.

And Moses said to Aaron, What did this people do to you, that you have brought so great a sin upon them? And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. They said to me, Make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And I said to them, Whoever has gold, let him take it off and give it to me; and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf." (7)

Fourth: The wandering:

Moses set out with the Children of Israel for the land that God had promised them. But the Israelites, in whose souls humiliation, abasement and servility had taken hold because of what they had suffered at the hands of the Egyptians, no sooner saw the enemy than their hearts flew in panic and terror, and they turned back on their heels in flight, heeding nothing, paying no attention to Moses' call or to his reminding them of the covenant they had made with God. Moses complained to God of their disobedience and rebellion and of his own helplessness, and God decreed for the disobedient that they be denied entry into it and wander in the desert for forty years. So they remained roaming aimlessly in the wilderness until the desert swallowed them up. God did not will that Moses or Aaron (peace be upon them both), or the generation that had forsaken them, should enter Palestine. Aaron died and was buried on a mountain

(7) The Book of Exodus [32:1-24].

called (Hor), one of the mountains of Sinai, and Moses (peace be upon him) followed him; he died sitting on a mountain called (Nebo), looking out over the promised land, and was buried there in a red sandhill, and the traces of his grave were hidden (8).

Here is what the Noble Qur'an says about this event, which in its essence does not differ from what the Torah relates:

And when Moses said to his people, "O my people, remember God's favour to you when He placed prophets among you and made you kings, and gave you what He had not given to anyone among the worlds. O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has ordained for you, and do not turn back on your heels, or you will turn back as losers." They said, "O Moses, there is a people of tyrants in it, and we shall not enter it until they leave it. If they leave it, then we shall enter." Two men among those who feared God, upon whom God had bestowed His favour, said, "Enter upon them through the gate; when you have entered it you will be victorious. And put your trust in God, if you are believers." They said, "O Moses, we shall never enter it as long as they remain in it. So go, you and your Lord, and fight; we shall sit right here." He said, "My Lord, I have power over none but myself and my brother, so separate us from the defiantly disobedient people." He said, "Then it is forbidden to them for forty years; they shall wander in the land. So do not grieve over the defiantly disobedient people." (9)

(8) See: the Book of Numbers 13, 14, and the Book of Deuteronomy 1, 32, 34.

(9) Al-Ma'ida 5:20-26.